The Death
by Eternal Contradiction
Summary: “We’re here to reward you,” they promised. But what kind of reward is death?


**_The Death_**

* * *

A/N: This literally came to me last night as I was taking a break from reading _Evernight_ by Claudia Gray by going to the bathroom. I hesitated from posting it because it could be so much **more** than it is. But I'm trying to write a real book, and I fear that if I start obsessing over this idea, I'll never publish a novel (and make money to pay back Grad School). I don't mean this isn't a good story in it's own right, just that it could be epic if I let it continue.

* * *

_.x._

Kerry died a few nights before her eighteenth birthday. Luckily for her, that same night corresponded with the moment she became a vampire.

They had found her a few weeks out of high school, stars still in her eyes and her future stretching before her like a winding road leading to nirvana. She wanted to experience life, to travel around the world and truly explore places other people did not consider destination hotspots. She wanted to meet a man and fall in love for a summer, and then leave him for the next adventure. She wanted what most teenagers want out of life – to get away from home and learn how to live her own life.

She didn't want to die.

There was no lingering sickness to warn her that her days were numbered. She didn't feel foreboding when she got out of bed that morning. In fact, she felt rather cheerful at the thought she'd be heading off to college soon and leaving behind a town that never seemed to be able to forgive her for being the victim of the most brutal crime Brockport had ever experienced. It was still light out when she left work, so she hadn't really been worried about crossing the parking lot towards her father's parked car, keys in her hand.

She never did find out why it was they felt the need to abduct her during the day – probably paying a human a good deal of money to do it and then disappear – but when she came to afterwards, still experiencing the flash of fear from the sensation of a needle plunging into her arm, it wasn't human faces looking up at her.

Though it had seemed that way at the time.

"We know who you are," one of them said.

"We know what you've done," the second one chimed.

"We're here to reward you," the first promised.

"Whether you like it or not," the last muttered.

Later, he'd become her ally, but she didn't know it at the time. All she knew was that she felt fear stronger than anything she had ever felt during her time with Ethan Bryne, so potent that she thought she would scream just for relief despite the gag covering her mouth.

"Don't struggle," the first one told her, not unkindly. "We took great care to make sure there would be no lasting marks on your body."

Kerry shook her head in denial. She didn't want to become a vampire. She really didn't. And if there was a part of her that had thought about it once or twice, it was never at the hands of three strangers. In fact, in these dreams, the vampire's hands had been decidedly soft and gentle as they cradled her body, rocking rhythmically on top of her as he took the gift of her life.

Or something like that.

Nothing like this: not this utile efficiency of drinking her blood until the brink of death, so that when they took off the gag there was not enough sensibility in her thoughts to really say anything. The blood was offered, hovering in front of her nose as a choice. She pictured Michel's face as she drank, a warmth settling in her belly even as her extremities turned as cold as ice. She died realizing there was so much he hadn't told her – he hadn't told her, for instance, that the blood would taste delicious, like high quality hot chocolate on a cold evening and that there was probably something in vampire saliva that made the decision so much more palatable.

He hadn't told her that without the sex – and possibly love – involved in the bite, she would feel like a small part of her had been robbed for the rest of her long life.

He hadn't told her that in that moment, when she was drinking the third one's blood that she would experience a clarity of thoughts. Hers. His. She knew in that instance that he didn't like this situation any better than she did, and he felt that it was a gross violation of both their rights as individuals. He saw the whole thing as tantamount to rape, and guilt gnawed at his stomach for it. Before she could understand why, he was withdrawing his wrist and the connection was gone.

Then the pain started. First it was like pins and needles, like a limb that fell asleep because of maintaining an awkward position for too long. But then it turned into excruciating pain: a heart attack, a stroke, and cellular death and reconfiguration all at once. It stretched on for eternity, but was over in an instant as her heart righted itself, slowing to a crawling beat she recognised from Michel's chest. Her perception of the world became sharper for an instant.

The man – the third – looked miserable. The other two looked disinterested.

"It's done," said One.

"He should have done this himself," said Two. "We shouldn't be cleaning up messes for him."

They both nodded at the man and left the room. Kerry was blinking wildly, her head a kaleidoscope of sensations she could barely comprehend. Her senses seemed to have senses, and the onslaught of new messages being sent to her brain made her head pound and her stomach churn.

"I don't think you were a mess to clean up," Third told her, crouching beside her and untying her wrists. "Obviously I was overruled. And before you ask, he doesn't know. I think it would be best he didn't find out, don't you? His fury would be dangerous to himself, to you, and a lot of other people."

Kerry groaned.

"Once you die at dawn it'll get better," he promised, helping her from the chair. "Everything will reboot – for lack of better term – the way it should. But hold on to the pain and disorientation you're experiencing right now. It's the last of your humanity."

He settled Kerry on a cot against the wall, his hand gently resting on her shoulder in sympathy for a moment. Then he left.

Kerry cried until dawn.

* * *

She spent fifty years as an eighteen year old girl – fifty years of looking over her shoulder every time she heard the slow cadence of another vampire's heart in the room, especially one she didn't recognise; fifty years of looking for him, until she couldn't even remember who it was she was looking for anymore, long after she was convinced he was dead, or that she had seen him but hadn't recognised him. Fifty years passed before she turned around in a club in Southern California and there he was, exactly as she remembered him. His hair was a little on the short side, but that was very much in style these days.

She cropped hers herself every night before heading out. Tonight she had coupled the short locks with shockingly thick eyeliner that looked more like greasepaint than make-up and it shimmered to reflect the lights surrounding her. Another style of the era.

Kerry smiled and walked towards him. They were both wearing the masks of their trade.

"I'm sorry to be intruding in your space," he told her with a nod of deference.

"Michel," she said, and his name sounded like music on her lips. She hadn't said it out loud for fifty-two years. "Your presence is hardly an intrusion – it's actually rather welcome. This town is open to your needs."

"You know me?" he asked quizzically, and she understood his confusion and concern. Once vampires met, they could recognise each other anywhere, under any name or using any disguise.

But he couldn't place her.

"I was alive at the time," she mentioned helpfully, wondering how many of them there had been throughout his life – how many young girls he told his true name to.

Not many, was her conclusion as he reacted to her subtle hint almost immediately.

She watched as confusion leeched from his eyes, leaving the blank expression she could just vaguely remember from their time together. She knew it because more often than not her eyes looked the same these days.

"So you changed your mind and found yourself someone who would give you what you denied from me, what was it? Three, four years before?"

She smiled at him, and knew it had an edge to it. "Let's just say the decision was made for me," she told him.

He was silent. She stopped the pretence of smiling.

"Who," he demanded, tone low and dangerous.

Kerry shrugged. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"You've been around for long enough now. You should know different." His eyes were assessing, regretful. She knew what he was thinking. If she didn't see an issue with what was done to her, she was as bad as they were.

Michel, it turned out, was what was considered a liberal vampire.

Turned out her sympathies were similar.

"Doesn't matter," she told him casually, "because I took care of it myself about forty years ago."

He was staring at her again, silently assessing.

"Yes," she told him, answering his unasked question. "It was because of you."

He looked vaguely ill, or at least as ill as a vampire his age was capable of looking. Kerry realized this wasn't the reunion she had dreamed about, once upon a time as she sat on a makeshift cot and listened to her heart struggle to find rhythm as the last vestiges of her humanity left. This was no confrontation, no passionate embrace.

This was what happened when two strangers met and tried to pretend they had been friends once.

"I'm sorry," she told him and meant it. "Let's try this again. I'm Greta. This town is pretty isolated. I know from experience that you wouldn't be here unless you needed somewhere to lie low for a few days. I can put you up for the night and maybe a few nights after that. I can't promise you as long as you need, but I'll do my best not to get territorial so long as you don't push your luck."

He nodded. "I can agree to that."

She got up from the table she joined him at. "Oh, and Michel? We might have met briefly in the past – and obviously that meeting had more impact on my life than yours – but that doesn't mean I won't dispose of you harshly and methodically if you step out of line. Other than that, I think you'll find we'll make decent friends."

"Vampires don't make friends," he mocked. She wasn't sure if he was serious or reminding her of her sixteen-year old human naivety.

"This one does."

* * *

"There were three of them," she told him a few nights later. They were sitting on the couch in her basement apartment in the far reaches of the morning. The club closed at three on weekends, earlier on weekdays, and it was rare that either of them had anything to occupy their time after that. She had concluded a long time ago that if they ever met again the dynamic between them would have changed explicably, she had never seen them sitting around in virtual silence either, enveloped in thoughts and unsaid ghosts. "They grabbed me during the day."

"Parking lot of the grocery store, middle of the afternoon. I never imagined you became a vampire because after your body didn't surface I assumed hunters got you."

Kerry didn't show him her surprise. She wondered how they could ever have an honest conversation with each other if all they did was lie through facial expressions.

As vampires there were other ways to tell what one was feeling, but fifty years later and it still felt intrusive.

"My family never stopped looking," she said softly. "Ian still goes to identify bodies they unearth that match my description and time I disappeared. He only knew me for six years of his life."

"Have you seen him?"

That was a loaded question. Rules said she shouldn't have, but – "a few times, from a distance." She leaned towards him. "They wanted to use me to get to you, as bait or something. I never quite found out, and I think it might have turned out to be one of those ideas where all the pieces of the puzzle just don't fall into place, you know? Anyway, there were two women and a man. They spent my first few years convincing me you're evil. That your ways and ideas needed to be stopped."

"You don't seem to think so," he said warily.

"I didn't then, either. There was one thing they didn't know. The man was the one who turned me and he didn't think you were evil at all. He thought you were rather heroic. I was thinking of you as I drank his blood, and I think he was thinking of you too. He never said anything about it, but I just knew that he disagreed with everything going on. If he disagreed, it was easier to believe in you too than be swayed to their ideas."

"I'm not that heroic."

"Neither am I. I didn't spare his life." She got up and walked to the window, staring out into the back yard. Her eyes were on level with the ragged, long grass. "I saw the opportunity present itself after months of planning, and I pressed the detonator despite the fact I liked him. I rarely feel guilty about it anymore."

She looked at him, meeting his eyes. "Maybe you're right. Vampires can't become friends, not in the truest, innocent sense that children mean the word."

But they did become friends – reluctant at first – and then they became lovers. She maintained her autonomy, and he kept his, only meeting when one or the other was in the vicinity. Fifty years before, peeking in the window of Ethan's house, she never imagined she'd become his occasional companion of the night.

That's all they were, and all they ever could be. Maybe, once upon a time they could have been more.

But maybe not.


End file.
